Table of Contents
Highlights from the Emperor’s Children Community
She Who Thirsts has only recently stepped out with a soft launch following the announcement of the Emperor’s Children Index and near confirmation of an Emperor’s Children 10th Edition Codex.
Even so we have seen an influx of users who have wasted no time in getting stuck into sharing all things Emperor’s Children.
Some Fantastic Emperor’s Children Miniatures
Not surprisingly many of our members have a collections of Emperor’s Children models, and a few have already begun to share their work through the Media Gallery and Project Logs.
One user in particular, ‘Firebrand’, has showcased some of the very best in the hobby to kick off the new website with each miniature entirely unique and characterful, perfectly on theme for the Legion.
As selection if their work is shown below, however head on over to Firebrand’s Project Log should you wish wish to see more or let them know how you feel about their work.
Trust me, it’s well wroth a visit!
Next up we have another enthusiastic community member, so much so that he even went about creating a website and forum for the Emperor’s Children audience.
Despite not being as the calibre shown above, particularly on the rank and file, this does showcase the creation of a wider Emperor’s Children army.
Useful as a reminder that not everyone in the community can, or needs to, reach display level painting. (Or even if possible for them, finishing an army could conceivably take years!)
Seeing more multi-coloured fanatics on the table-top is always a massive improvement over grey plastic after all! (Or metal, if you have been around for a while or enjoy a bit of Oldhammer)
A Dive into the Emperor’s Children Lore – The Character Description Compendium
With some more visual items out of the way there is a treat in-store for those of you more interested in the deeper lore, backstory and side stories of our glorious legion.
User ‘MolotovKraken’ has curated and disseminated and absolute horde of information covering various Emperor’s Children characters and warbands, available and collected now in one location.
This covers the more famous, in Lucius the Eternal and The Cohors Nausicae, through the lost but not forgotten in Doomrider, to even the slightly more obscure in Forgeworld Quir.
Many of these threads and collections have further insights, colour schemes and images to illustrate the writing behind them.
At the time of writing yet more in this series in still emerging and in the near future such a fantastic resource will undoubtedly need to be compiled and referenced through the site resources.
Indeed it covers, and vastly exceeds, an article already in the pipeline for She Who Thirsts covering the know Emperor’s Children warbands. Amazing stuff.
The passion within the Emperor’s Children community is self evident here, something we can expect to see overflow as soon as we hear more concrete news around our coming release.
Slaanesh themed Lore and Media
User ‘Sea Dragon’ has taken a slightly different route highlighting some wider lore and media that, though at times not Emperor’s Children specific, would undoubtedly catch the eye of anyone with even a passing interest in them.
This showcases the breadth of interest and knowledge within the community, with already items many would otherwise not being aware of brought to light.
Slaanesh and Emperor’s Children Novels
First up we have a dedicated space for Emperor’s Children novel recommendations. Alongside this a list of those featuring our legion has also helpfully been provided.
A couple of old Black Library novels novels in ‘The Eye of Terror’ by Barrington J Bayley and ‘Daemon World’ by Ben Counter have also been highlighted. First published in 1999 and 2003 respectively you would be forgiven if you had missed out on them if not yet in the hobby (or potentially even born!) at the time.
The Black Library really has been around for a long time now and these give some insights into the lore and art direction at the time and would be interesting enough alone for that reason.
Have a read of the summary provided below to see they pique your interest and head on over to the forum thread should you wish to thank ‘Sea Dragon’ themself.
To start this thread, I would like to recommend two older Black library novels: Eye of Terror, by Barrington Bailey, and Daemon world, by Ben Counter. Both give a lot of insight on how life is in the Eye of Terror.
In the first one, we get to see chaos xenos who adore Slaanesh, as well as a woman possessed by a daemonette who, thanks to that daemon, can travel the warp inside the Eye and pilot a ship, guiding it through the empyrean currents like a navigator.
There is many other things, like marines getting tempted by Slaanesh, liquor made of souls, and the roots of my desire (read the book, seriously, it’s super enjoyable).
Some of it might not be cannon anymore, but it’s well written (at least the Spanish translation I got some years ago) and has tons of wonderful information about the warp, daemons and their worlds, hierarchy… An amazing read, with great world building and good plot.The second book, Daemon world, is a novel about a very valuable planet inside the Eye. It is currently governed by a Slaaneshi daemon princess, and there is a lot of interesting characters, from cultists (including a lady that dominates the daemon that possesses her) to a fallen space marine chapter devoted to Slaanesh (though, sadly, they don’t do much in the book).
‘Sea Dragon’ – She Who Thirsts forums April 2024
Following the current of the previous book, it is a nice read to know more about the life inside of the Eye, in a daemon world under the grasp of Slaanesh. A bit worse than the first one, in my opinion, but still a solid choice.
Slaanesh video games
Now, before you get excited, we still haven’t seen this from Games Workshop or their licensees. All other factions feature far more prominently than us. There’s something about zombies….
In any case the focus here is on games that are on theme or otherwise have a Slaanesh vibe, some arguably are in part directly inspired by it. Perhaps a bit like She Who Thirsts, if something you want to see doesn’t exist, go and make it!
Sex, drugs and rock and roll with tongue placed very much in-cheek was a great fit for the early days of Warhammer 40k in which humour often featured more prominently. It was also a great fit for the 80s! (or so this author has been told being not quite of the vintage for my interests to go that way at the time)
Since the turn into a more Grim Dark serious setting from 2nd edition, and seriously so from 3rd Edition onwards, Games Workshop have often struggled to find a place for Slaanesh and the Emperor’s Children.
Hedonites of Slaanesh in Age of Sigmar do give us an insight into how games workshop can marry up hedonism and masochism together with a grim dark future and a PG-13 rating to keep the cash flowing, but it’s a balancing act.
This has left us to wither on the vine somewhat both in game (as evidenced by our paucity of models and last in line position for a faction release) and in other Games Workshop Media.
That’s not to say this isn’t an aesthetic that doesn’t have a fandom out there. It’s probably why a lot of us after here after all. To that end some games that get the ‘vibe’ have been suggested.
Head on over to see if any of them tickle your fancy, or indeed if you have more of your own games to add that give off that Slaanesh vibe.
Emperor’s Children Tactics
With no specific Emperor’s Children rules since Warhammer 40k 9th Edition and Chaos Space Marines in the doldrums competitively and seeing little use, there’s little to lend itself to in-depth tactical discussion.
Combined with being in a holding pattern with dead rules prior to a Chaos Space Marine codex and Emperor’s Children index release it’s perhaps not surprising there is little activity here yet.
Still, there is a avenue if you want to discuss your latest army lists or are curious to how other local metas shape up.
We’re unlikely to see much to highlight here from the community for a while, but expect an explosion as soon as there is something tangible to work on.
Other Emperor’s Children resources and wrap up
That’s almost it from this 1st edition of the Community Spotlight, and what a bumper edition it has been as well!
The enthusiasm (not to mention volume) at which fantastic Emperor’s Children information has been shared by even the early soft launch community has been astounding. It certainly bodes well for what will comes once we start nearing an actual release.
Perhaps the last item to note is the general Emperor’s Children Resources hub, a place to gather all the links and highlights from around the web that may be of use and interest to the community.
This is one of the primary goals of She who Thirsts, along with producing more long for EC specific content directly, so it’s good to see it started.
This will evolve over time in terms of volume of content and means of collation, but for now it’s a strong start. Feel free to to add to the knowledge.
The community members featured here can look forward to a shiny new forum badge as a small token of appreciation and recognition of their contritions to the Emperor’s Children community.
Until next time brothers, sisters and others.
_____________________________________
What are your thoughts? Feel free to join us to discuss this article on our forums and perhaps feature in the next Community Spotlight!
